Fernando Rivera

Fernando I. Rivera is a professor of sociology and director of the Puerto Rico Research Hub at the University of Central Florida. His research interests and activities are in the sociology of health/medical sociology, disasters, and race and ethnicity. His published work has investigated how different mechanisms are related to certain health and mental health outcomes, with a particular emphasis on Latino populations. His disaster research has explored the investigation of factors associated with disaster resilience, restoration and resilience in coupled human-natural systems, and climate migration. Other publications have investigated the Puerto Rican diaspora in Florida. 

Rivera has co-edited Disaster Resilience: Interdisciplinary Perspective (2012), co-authored Disaster Vulnerability, Hazards, and Resilience: Perspectives from Florida (2015), and edited Emerging Voices in Natural Hazards Research (2019). He was guest editor for a special issue of Population and Environment on Puerto Rico before and after Hurricane Maria and the Journal of Emergency Management titled "Analysis of pre and post disaster management and recovery in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria." Rivera earned his master's and PhD in sociology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and his bachelor's in sociology from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez. He also completed a National Institute of Mental Health-sponsored post-doctoral fellowship at Rutgers University at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research.